


How to Take Over Middle-Earth

by KatHarkness_Katara



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Crack, F/M, Referencing pretty much everyone
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-28
Updated: 2015-06-28
Packaged: 2018-04-06 16:36:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4229073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KatHarkness_Katara/pseuds/KatHarkness_Katara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An exercise in evil-ness, not to be taken seriously. Now in progress, as the scheme is carried out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Step the First: Become a master assassin. Failing this, "acquire" a master assassin and ensure their loyalty. This is risky; and the personal touch is preferable. For the purposes of this exercise, it shall be assumed the practitioner is the assassin in question.

Step the Second: Fake the suicide of Queen Arwen, wife of King Elessar of Gondor. This will, of course, incapacitate Gondor for some time, as well as the High Elves of Rivendell.

Step the Third: Fake a suicide note from Arwen, saying she found out Elessar was having an affair with Éowyn, wife of the Steward of Gondor and sister of the King of Rohan. Ensure Elrond, Faramir and Éomer find out about the note after the funeral.

Step the Fourth: In the ensuing chaos, trap Gandalf and imprison him somewhere. Make sure no eagles can reach him; do not kill him, it doesn't work. Just keep him out of the way.

Step the Fifth: Shoot Gimli, son of Glóin, and implicate Legolas, son of Thranduil. This will keep the Wood Elves and the Dwarves out of the Gondor/Rohan/High Elf conflict.

Step the Sixth: Make sure no word of the escalating chaos reaches the Shire. Those pesky hobbits never know when to stay home.

Step the Seventh: Murder Éowyn. Implicate Elladan and Elrohir, Arwen's brothers. This will put Rohan and the High Elves at each other's' throats, as well as preventing any reconciliation with Gondor.

Step the Eighth: Find Radagast the Brown, and persuade him to make you a draft that will turn the drinker into a blithering idiot. Make sure you have plenty of doses, and the effects will last for a long time.

Step the Ninth: Kidnap Meriadoc Brandybuck, squire of Rohan, and Peregrin Took, knight of Gondor, from the Shire. Give them the blithering-idiot draft. There may not appear to be much of a difference, but just be sure they won't accidently do something sensible. Insert them into the Gondor/Rohan/High Elf conflict.

Step the Tenth: Forge a letter from the Dwarves of the Lonely Mountain to Bilbo Baggins, asking for assistance in getting revenge on the Wood Elves for Gimli's death. Ensure the High Elves find and read the letter. This will bring them into the Dwarf/Wood Elf conflict.

Step the Eleventh: Acquire a lot of Ent-Draft. Kidnap a bunch of Dwarves, feed them Ent-Draft until they're normal size, shave off their beards and cut off their ears and tongues. Do all this while disguised as a Wood Elf. Then leave them on Thranduil's doorstep. The Elves will assume they're men or elves attacked by dwarves; the dwarves will assume the Wood Elves are torturing them and try to kill them.

Step the Twelth: Plant mushrooms on the persons of Elessar, Éomer, Elrond, Faramir, and indeed anyone vaguely important. The brain-dead hobbits will start attacking them to get at the mushrooms, and might hurt someone, or at least cause a lot of chaos and confusion.

Step the Thirteenth: While the heads of state of Gondor and Rohan are preoccupied, quietly take control of their armies. Use bribery, threats, blackmail and select assassinations to gain their loyalty.

Step the Fourteenth: Get the officers in the armies to make surreptitious contact with their counterparts among the Wood Elf, High Elf and Dwarven armies. Insinuate that their leaders do not really care about them, and that the "squabble" should really be sorted out privately, by single combat.

Step the Fifteenth: Use similar methods of bribery and corruption to gain the loyalty of the Wood Elf, High Elf and Dwarven armies.

Step the Sixteenth: Command the various armies to persuade their leaders to take to the combat field against each other. This should be relatively easy; the people are sick of the bickering.

Step the Seventeenth: When the various leaders start their duelling, ensure there are no survivors. If necessary, blow up the combat field. This can be achieved by sprinkling the field liberally with mushrooms, then releasing the two hobbits with massive fireworks up their shirts and lit fuses.

Step the Eighteenth: Have yourself proclaimed King over all territories. Promise not to let personal issues get out of control, as that's what got the previous rulers into trouble.

Step the Nineteenth: Have Gandalf shipped off to the Undying Lands. That should prevent him from scheming against your benevolent rule.

Step the Twentieth: Do various good deeds to endear yourself to the people you now rule. When you are certain of your position, do whatever you like. After all, you're in charge now.


	2. Step the First

There are two paths to world domination: brute force, and cunning.

Sauron had tried brute force. So had Saruman, for all his magical skill, his wise words and games of cloak and dagger. Before them, the Witch-King, and even earlier, Morgoth; all had tried brute force, and all had failed.

But the cunning route to power had been attempted by none; or at least, not in such a way as left a lasting impact. What a lost opportunity!

After all, the most reliable method of gaining power is through the elimination of any in your way. But removing a troublesome king by method of sending armies to destroy his kingdom is, in a word, clumsy.

Much better the simple excision of the one irritating factor, leaving a vacuum to be filled by a more opportune candidate.

So thought Viridar, a "lady" of dubious origin. Her father may have been an elf, or was it her mother? In truth, she did not know herself who her sire or dame were. Long, silky hair and pointed ears pointed to elvish blood, but somewhat lesser poise and grace indicated a mixture of heritages. Her infancy was among the Men of Dale, her apprenticeship from the Dwarves of Erebor, her training among the Dúnedain.

For, in the tender years of her youth, she found a most unusual preference for battle. And so, she trained as a warrior, seeking the Rangers of the North when the pedestrian armies of the Dwarves gave her no further opportunities.

The Men of the West gave her a greater chance to find her place, and she joined them in their quests against the orcs. But she found her bloodlust to be beyond the Rangers' concept of proper, ladylike decorum, and so parted company.

So she travelled, and came to the lands of Harad, and Khand, and so learnt a new trade. She became Arda's foremost, and indeed only expert, professional assassin.

When Sauron began his rise, the eastern lands rallied to his banner. And she considered joining him. Before she decided, however, she went forth among the Men, and the Elves, and the Dwarves, and saw their strength, and their weakness, and so learnt their entire strategy would depend upon a gamble.

And when she saw their strategy, and that of the Dark Lord, she saw the folly of throwing in with Sauron. If the gamble failed, she would have no place in his world, whether she stood at his side or not. And if she joined the Free Peoples, she would once more be curtailed into their concept of what a lady should be, even as Éowen Éomund's daughter found.

No, she would see what happened. And then, she would make her own bid for power, using cunning to see her goals accomplished.

And then, Viridar Shadow's daughter would be queen over all of Arda.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In all honesty, I wrote this chapter last at night when I was trying to sleep, but I returned to this piece and found the start of a new chapter writing itself in my head. I'm probably going to end up writing the full story of how Viridar, daughter of Shadow, completes her scheme to become queen. Don't expect updates with any kind of frequency. Also, Viridar is not a terribly well-thought out character. This may change if she gets a bit of character development at some time other than three in the morning. So she may come across as a wimp, or a Mary Sue, or anything in between.


End file.
